final plea for donations

Yesterday I got myself so busy.  I wrote, and then I ran off to Hadley to install a ceiling.  I was on a ladder and using a nail gun before ten.  I got home around three and proceeded to ready my box of road supplies: almonds, mineral water, a 1/5th of bourbon (for the motel rooms), instant coffee, sugar packets, tobacco, filter tips, a trash container, tools to work on the dashboard camera mount, drawing supplies, a crock (to make Stan and Rose Mary sauerkraut), a jar of dilly beans, and floss picks.  All of this is in a sturdy wooden box that will sit on the floor of the passenger side as I drive 2000+ miles across this country.  I leave tomorrow morning as soon as my coffee is ready.  

              
I was on the phone with my mom the other day, and she told me that it can be hard to ask people for money twice.  She did a run for breast cancer twice—admittedly, a more noble cause than a road trip—and the second time around people were much more reluctant to donate, and so I am especially grateful to my two-time donors.  If you haven't chipped in but you want to, there is still time.  Last year donations were open-ended; donors could chip in as much as they pleased; but this year I made some low-price options, the lowest of which ($6.69) I am calling "the poet's choice."  For $6.99 you can send me 1/6th of a motel room.  Think of how much fun you could have with that.  You could tell your co-workers that you just donated one-sixth of a motel room to a fellow poet.  Over the course of one year, it amounts to pennies per day.     
 

  
There are, of course, other options, and so far the most popular option seems to be the FULL ROOM.  Perhaps the notion of a partial room is unnerving on some low, subconscious level.  Like, if you were to donate a quarter of a room to The 6 Motels Western Adventure, which quarter would that be?  I might end up sleeping under the ice bucket.  You might prefer that I at least sleep in the tub.  Money, of course, is a liquid asset, just as gasoline is a kind of liquid asset, too; and so donations at all levels will stream toward the various necessities of the road: food, fuel, lodging.  There is, of course, another reason to donate.  I'm not gonna get all NPR on your ass right now, but your financial support really does translate into enthusiasm, your enthusiasm and my enthusiasm, and it's enthusiasm that pushes me to set the bar as high as I can.  I can't ask for your hard-earned money and then do shit work.  That would be lame.  If you scroll to the top of this blog, you can choose your donation level and then click on the big red and blue 6.  Donors can expect an appropriate thank-you, either via the mail or in person.  I'm not sure what your gift will be, but it won't be a tote bag.        

              
Okay...I think I'm done with fund-raising language.  I leave tomorrow as soon as my coffee is ready.  I hope you'll join me as I travel across this country.  It'll be fun.